Friday, March 31, 2017

THE LEGION OF REGRETTABLE SUPERVILLAINS - FORGOTTEN FOES : REPREHENSIBLE ROYALTY



Last year, I had the pleasure of having my first book, The League of Regrettable Superheroes, published by the fine folks over at Quirk Books in Philadelphia, PA. Although the cat has been out of the bag for a little while, I'm nonetheless proud to announce that the logical sequel -- The Legion of Regrettable Super-Villains -- is slated to debut on March 28th! You can now pre-order the book over on AmazonBarnes&Noble, and probably on the weird superhero book black market. It does thriving business!

To whet your appetite for the new book, every Friday leading up to the release date, I'll be providing brief snapshots of just some of the 108 (!) historically effed-up bad guys covered in the book (and that's not even counting the sidebars).

Crime isn't just for the little people any more, it's for the big ol' people! Or, more specifically, kings, queens and other regent types! The regular brand of royalty already spends an inordinate amount of time stickin' it to the little man, and now come along these super-powered potentates to make it all a little worse. Y'can't win! Not against the baleful barons and deadly dukes anyway ...


KING KILLER
Created by: Will Eisner
Debuted in: Uncle Sam Quarterly #1 (Quality Comics, Autumn 1941)

The original fifty pounds of crap in a twenty-five pound sack. King Killer begins his existence as a medical experiment performed on a timid powder-puff of a man. This weird science version of the Charles Atlas program promises to make a man out of a mouse by ... stuffing him full of meaner men! The brains of fifty terrible criminals are shoved into the jam-packed cranium of a 98-pound weakling, causing him to shoot up to a hulking size and filling his frame with EVIL!

After tangling with patriotic superhero Uncle Sam, King even goes so far as to make his own criminal state right in the heart of America! Nowadays, we call it North Carolina ooooooh topical burn.


SEAWEED QUEEN
Created by: Steve Broder
Debuted in: Captain Flight #5 (Fiction House, December 1944)

It's pretty cool to be a queen and everything, but it's a little less cool when being a queen means you have to look like steamed kale. The Seaweed Queen rules an entire empire of Seaweed People and, I have to assume, their Seaweed Pets and Seaweed children. Probably they go to the Seaweed Offices and telecommute from their Seaweed Smartphones and just generally go around performing their green collar jobs and everything.

The Queen's plan to conquer the world hinged on using a chlorophyll ray to turn unassuming humanity into Seaweed People Slaves. I think it also makes our breath fresher, I can't recall.


LORD LAZEE
Created by: Otto Binder and Jack SparlingDebuted in: Unearthly Spectaculars #2 (Harvey Comics, December 1966)

He's like the living mascot of America's middle class, he's a huge tub of lard in a weaponized La-Z-Boy recliner! Despite being chair-bound, this bedsore-besotted baddie actually gets quite a few things done. Not only can he control a small army of crooks and underlings from the mechanical panel on his armrest, he's even got a robot version of himself to do the heavy lifting! Probaby also he can send the robot version to the gym just so he's not wasting his membership. These are a lot of fat jokes considering that I, myself, will have to one day be buried in a piano crate, but I'm having fun.

1 comment:

Kid Kyoto said...

I loved Regretable Heroes so yeah, I'm on board for this one too. Congrats!

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